I was involved in a black bear, Ursus americanus, study from 1998-2016. My field responsibilities have included trapping, radio-tracking, and winter denning in the Book Cliffs of eastern Utah. My Thesis was Management of Black Bears in Utah: Harvest Strategies and Outcomes.

From 2008 to 2013 I worked on an NSF

funded project surveying the Biodiversity of Tardigrades in North America. This project was a collaborative effort between Baker University in Kansas, Fresno City College in California, and Brigham Young University in Utah. We identified tardigrades based on their morphology and DNA sequences. Click here for teacher resources related to tardigrades.

In 2006 I was involved in a survey for the Dark Kangaroo Mouse, Microdipodops megacephalus, in Utah’s Great Basin Desert. The Dark Kangaroo Mouse is a Wildlife Species of Concern in Utah. We were able to locate two populations of Dark Kangaroo Mice that were previously unknown through live-trapping of small mammals.

In 2017 I traveled to Antarctica as part of PolarTREC. I worked on the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long-Term Ecological Research (MCM LTER) site with the soils team (i.e. the Wormherders). The MCM LTER has been part of the National Science Foundation LTER program since 1993. The main objective of the research is to understand how ecosystems respond to changes in the environment. Click here to link to my PolarTREC webpage. Click here for my 2018 UtSTA Presentation.